Chicken Thief
by Saskia Q
Summary: Derek, an Alpha wolf, lives alone, and he prefers it that way. He doesn't need a young, lively cub keeping him company, no matter how attractive the young man is. Especially when Stiles wakes the need for a mate inside him, a need he buried a long time ago.
1. Chapter 1

There was mud, a lot of mud, and it was caked to the bottom of his paws, splattering up his tail as he ran, darting between trees, the farmer hot on his heels. The sun was already nearing the horizon, casting long shadows on the forest floor.

Stiles slipped into the tree line as he fled from the angry man chasing him. The blood on his snout still warm from when he'd killed those chickens. He shuddered and a few feathers still clinging to his coat landed in the mud. But it wasn't the murder of the chickens that had him reeling, he'd killed plenty of animals before. Leaping over a fallen tree, Stiles's heart raced as he thought about the riffle in the farmer's hand, inside a bullet with his name on it.

With almost two hours of sprinting back to his sanctuary ahead of him, it would be nearly impossible for Stiles to shake the farmer. His only hope was to tire the man, or to hide long enough for the farmer to give up his pursuit.

Passing the path that led toward the forest, Stiles stepped out of the tree line and crossed the road to freedom. He knew that there was a tiny stream close to the southern edge of this road. He needed to clean himself off before other wolves smelled the excess blood on his coat and hunger drove them to hunt him down.

Hunger was something Stiles knew. Hunger was something he lived with on a daily basis. Hunger was what drove him to steal.

He never knew when his next meal would come, or if he would live long enough to see it. But he had to try and prove them all wrong, he wasn't going to let his former pack be right.

There had not been enough food during the last winter, and Stiles had found himself cast out, banned, for being the weakest member.

But he soon realized that living on the streets meant survival of the fittest. That was almost two years ago now, and he still lived, proving he wasn't weak at all, but rather resourceful and resilient for an omega.

The first few times he stole, he felt awful. But it couldn't possibly compare to the empty feeling in his belly. He hated to think what his parents would make of him, but they were dead, and stealing was the only thing he could do to keep himself alive.

But Stiles hungered for more than food in his belly.

He hungered for safety. There were dangers around every corner on the streets and in the woods of Beacon Hills. Just because you were a young wolf fending for yourself didn't mean you were safe. Stiles soon came to the realization, again, that the world was cruel.

Lessons no one should learn at such a young age.

Stiles hungered for a better life.

He hungered for a roof over his head. Hungered for the kind of food he could earn through an honest living. But he was a cast out omega with no chance of a normal life anywhere in sight.

Stiles hungered. He hungered for discovering what he truly craved.

The farmer could sense him. Though he clearly didn't know where Stiles was hiding, the man's muscles tensed in anticipation of the hunt he knew would soon ensue. His eyes scanned the trees in search of the little wolf.

For his part, Stiles was happy to wait. He'd lurk silently, his paws in the soft soil, his body kept low, till the farmer got tired or hungry, whichever happened first. If he waited long enough and quietly enough, the man would simply give up and go home. And when that happened, Stiles could return to his hideout. His golden brown fur shimmered in the light of the setting sun, his form obscured by the undergrowth.

The humans knew nothing of hunting. They were a foolish bunch, stumbling about the woods with their guns and supplies. Inefficient, clumsy. Not like Stiles in his wolf form. Nature had made him well-suited to hunt and kill. He was built, limb by limb, to track, strike and devour whatever he wished and there were few in the animal kingdom that could stand in his way, especially when wolves hunted in a pack.

The humans scarcely entered these woods anymore. This particular stretch of forest had gained a reputation for an exceptionally brutal strain of wolf. Many years ago, long before Stiles settled here, villagers had tried to hunt down the wolves. But the men hadn't been tracking mere animals. They'd been pursuing Lycans, werewolves. And when the beasts sent them back to their homes wounded, maimed, or dead, they got the message. The woods belonged to the wolves.

Suddenly, the farmer came running in his direction, dashing through the woods at full speed. The closer he got, the louder his breathing became and the smell of human intruded Stiles's nostrils.

He charged through the forest, his paws kicking up autumn leafs, his breathing ragged. Trees and fallen logs loomed out at him, branches reaching up and out like claws to snag and trip him up. He dodged around a tree, vaulted a fallen log and was just casting a terrified look over his shoulder when a metal sound resonated in the forest.

One second, the path ahead of him was clear, a carpet of dead leaves and dirt, as familiar as any other day. The next moment cold metal teeth closed around his left leg. Stiles hit the ground in a flurry of limbs and dirt, tumbling to a stop abruptly. The chain rooting the trap to the ground pulled taught with a metallic shuffle. Air forced itself out of Stiles's lungs, and he lay there for a few seconds, unable to breathe, all higher functions on hold.

It took a while for the pain to really process. His attention was mostly on the fast inclosing farmer. But now, Stiles's focus had shifted exclusively to his leg, where white hot pain was pulsing up to his hip bone and back down, slowly narrowing to the broken leg and the metal teeth.

He bit uselessly at the trap and howled again, a pathetic, desperate noise. His snout came back slick with blood. He forced his eyes open and tried to see around him, but the world had become a mad swirl of branches, leaves, coldness and shadows. He couldn't breathe.

Then, the silence was cut through with the sound of footsteps. Thunderous, giant footsteps, made earsplittingly loud only because no other sound was there to cover them. "You're mine now, little wolf."

The trap was still chained to the ground, anchored to a spike. Stiles pulled it, gave it a tug, but it refused to move. Plans formed and failed in his mind at a dizzying speed. Hold your breath and try to pull your leg out; too much pain. Change into human form; the farmer would learn the truth and that would endanger his entire species.

Still anchored in the bear trap, Stiles lay on the ground with his eyes closed tight for what felt like forever, and what was probably only a minute. Maybe two.

He felt very nearly ready to bite his own leg off when something suddenly caught his scent. He only got a whiff of it at first, but it was sufficient to draw him out of his panic. When next it met his snout, he found himself utterly intoxicated by it. A powerful smell dominated the air.

Before Stiles could even twitch a muscle, the farmer suddenly jerked the bush aside and pointed his gun directly at him. Stiles screwed his eyes shut in that millisecond, bracing himself for the painful penetration of the bullet that would stop his heart... But it never came.

"Michael, what is going on out here?" A stranger suddenly asked, startling Stiles out of his thoughts.

"Finally caught the wolf that keeps stealing my chickens." The farmer grinned as he brought his shotgun back up.

Stiles was about to have another panic attack when suddenly he caught a whiff of that same delicious smell. To call it a powerful scent was an understatement; it reached up into his nose and commanded his full attention. The source wasn't hard to find. His gaze immediately shot towards the stranger standing beside the farmer. Not merely a man, but a wolf. No. Not just a wolf, an Alpha.

Stiles's heart pulsed in his chest as though it were struggling to break free. His mouth became dry and the hairs in his fur stood on end with excitement. He ordered his wolf to calm down, but it was no use. The enticing smell of the black haired stranger walking towards him was too much for him to handle right now.

"That is a Timber wolf, an endangered species, you can't kill it."

The farmer groaned and rolled his eyes. "I don't see PETA out here." He popped a second shell into the shotgun and glanced up.

The Alpha immediately stepped in his line of fire, effectively blocking Stiles from the farmer's view.

"Are you going to stop me, Derek?" He bit, stepping closer to make the Alpha step back. "You're being ridiculous."

But the big wolf stood his ground, didn't even move an inch.

The farmer's face flushed as he grabbed Derek's jacket. "You think I won't shoot through you?" He tightened his grip.

"I know you won't." Derek smiled slowly, watching the horror grow on the other man's face.

"D-Don't make this personal, Hale." the farmer stammered, fist loosening against Derek's chest. "That wolf is costing me money. He's a problem."

"Depends on your definition of problem," Derek hummed. He leaned forward, placing his own hand over Michael's. "Cause I'm seriously considering this a problem."

The farmer watched Derek's intense gaze for a moment, as if sizing him up, and seemed to come to a conclusion. "I hope he bites your hand off."

Derek turned his head toward Stiles and sighed. "He won't."

"Ah, hell." The farmer gave a sigh of his own and retreated back into the forest.

Satisfied that he wasn't going to end up as a rug in some old farm, Stiles took a deep breath. The dark haired man fell silent again and knelt beside his trapped leg. He gripped the bloody metal and pried the trap open. Stiles may have whimpered. Slowly, the teeth slipped out of his flesh. He heard the trap snap shut on itself and saw the Alpha shove it aside. His hands were red now, too. He tentatively held Stiles's lower leg in his hands, a strange tension in his shoulders that came from trying to hold something as gently as possible.

Stiles's eyes slipped shut again, and stayed that way. Freed from the trap, his pain was worse than when he was being crushed by the metal jaws. He was so tired. Surely he hadn't lost that much blood. He refused to entertain the possibility that he was going to bleed out. He had to survive. He couldn't die here. Not after everything. He couldn't.

A muscled arm wrapped around his hip, and even through his thick fur Stiles could feel the comfortable warmth of the Alpha's body. Another hand found the back of his head.

The last thing he really remembered was the Alpha swearing. His arms sliding under him, lifting him.

Everything went white for a second as his body convulsed in pain. It felt like he could pass out any second. Breath. He told himself to breath.

To be continued…

This story is based on the book Wild by Zoe Perdita. I will not follow the storyline from the original book.

Please share your thoughts.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles woke up gradually as wooden floorboards creaked under the Alpha's steps. His eyes felt like lead as he cracked them open, blinking blearily as his vision pulled in and out of focus.

Derek treaded carefully as he carried Stiles inside, the front porch steps squeaked again under the Alpha's weight. The little wolf was heavier than he looked, but Derek couldn't tell if that was normal, or because he kept moving, sniffing Derek's neck. Derek growled when the little wolf stuck his cold nose into his ear, but the rebel carried on, unfazed. Derek silently prayed no one saw him, looking like some barbarian, a wild wolf cradled in his arms, there were already enough rumours about him.

As Derek moved through the front door, Stiles took in the scene of a dusty cabin, a frown creasing his forehead. Its current state of disrepair was... alarming, to say the least. The walls were conspicuously blank, as was the floor. If he wasn't mistaken, the floor was, in fact, quite burned in some areas so that the blackness of the cellar stared up at him from below.

Derek entered a small bedroom and flipped the entry light switch, but nothing happened. His muffled curse echoed against the empty walls.

Stiles howled in pain, his leg protesting at the sudden change of position, as Derek put him on the bed. Incredible, crippling pain that had him whimpering, claws extracting involuntarily.

But all of that be damned, he was more interested in the garden that revealed to be practically growing into the room through the back porch when Derek opened the windows, letting the moonlight in. It was a right wilderness, the lawn unkempt and the bushes untrimmed, and certainly no flowers to speak of. But it had potential. It felt like… home. Or it had been at some point in the past.

"I'll clean up your wound, but you'll need a doctor for the break." Derek's tone was as cold as the metal responsible for Stiles's predicament.

"I'm going to get the first aid kit, when I come back… be in human form."

Stiles felt grateful towards Derek, but at the same time reluctant to comply with his request to transform. He had spent most of his life in wolf form, Stiles could hardly remember what it felt like being human. It was inevitable now, Derek's dominant stare made it instantly clear he had no choice.

Derek took out his phone before he disappeared into an adjacent room.

As soon as the Alpha left the room, Stiles's muscles begun to contract and relax spasmodically, his heart raced and his vision grew blurry. And then, in a surge of violent energy which travelled from his paws to his nose, his body transformed. His wolf features morphed rapidly into something human; his snout became host to a mouth, claws and paws alike mutated into hands and feet, his body shed its thick black fur. He doubled over as the energy raced through him and clawed at the sheets like a wolf, nails raking over the bedlinen, tearing it.

"You're going to pay for that." Derek came back into the bedroom, dropping the first aid kit next to Stiles, eyes glued to the content inside.

"Sorry, I haven't changed in a long time."

"Clearly."

Almost immediately, Derek slipped gloves on, took in a deep breath and started the sterilization process, not giving Stiles a moment to recover and obviously undisturbed by his nakedness. He was slow and gentle with every move and Stiles was thankful that the Alpha had the capability for such a loving touch.

A few minutes later, any remaining metal fragments laid on the night table. Derek proceeded to put a bandage over Stiles's wound to lessen the bleeding with an extra gauze serving as pressure.

As the Alpha wound the material around his leg, Stiles couldn't help but notice just how strong his arms were. The muscles were perfectly formed and a clear explanation as to why Derek had carried Stiles through the forest with almost no effort.

"What is your name?" Derek asked, breaking the silence.

"Stiles, Stiles Stilinski."

"And your pack?"

Stiles shrugged, considered his answer, then lied. "I… never had one."

Stiles's body was screaming in pain as Derek bandaged him, but he couldn't bring himself to care. For the first time in… forever, he was inside a house, on a soft bed and in the company of an Alpha. His wolf was in heaven.

Stiles couldn't keep his eyes off Derek. The Alpha looked a few years older than him, and appeared to take good care of himself. He wore a tight shirt and jeans. His body and muscles obscured by the trappings of his clothes, but there was no doubt that this wolf had a rock-hard physique. Stiles could see it in his broad shoulders, and in the thickness of his hairy forearms.

Though he wore a somewhat strange look on his face, as though constantly angry, sour, he was rather handsome. His squared jaw featured a well-kept stubble, his black hair stuck up wildly, and his eyes, a curious green, were alluring. And as Derek proceeded with questions, Stiles found he couldn't keep from studying him.

He had an air of great confidence about him, as though he was already assured of his power, although something had crept into it since he had brought Stiles inside his home, confusion maybe. It was an interesting situation, to say the least.

Finally, Stiles decided to take part in the conversation.

"So, thank you for saving me."

"Took you long enough. Too much time in the wild apparently left you without manners."

Stiles thought up a few questions he wanted answered but found the tables were turned as he suddenly became the target of Derek's gaze. His gorgeous eyes settled on him and seemed to probe for something. They bore into his deeply, making Stiles blush. He had to look away, though Derek didn't relent. He didn't even seem to realize he was doing it.

After a time, Stiles laughed awkwardly and reached out across the bed for the sheets to cover his nakedness, feeling suddenly utterly exposed.

Derek finally caught on, cleared his throat, averted his gaze and stood up. But Stiles's eyes gravitated towards something else. When he caught sight of it, his face immediately flushed, again. Though he tried, he couldn't seem to avert his eyes. The crotch of Derek's pants was sticking out. The Alpha was clearly aroused.

"Here, for the pain." Derek said, passing him a pill. As he did so, Derek's hand brushed against his arm. Where such a thing might ordinarily have happened so quickly as to have gone unnoticed, his hand lingered there for a few seconds, his fingers almost gripping Stiles's wrist. He pulled his hand away quickly once he realized what he was doing and nodded towards the bed.

"Get some rest."

Derek's expression became even angrier than usual before he discarded the gloves. He shoved two pillows behind Stiles's back before he grabbed the first aid kit and exited the room, leaving Stiles to fall back onto the bed, smiling.

• • •

"He's in the bedroom." Derek stated, leading Deaton into the chamber.

And sure enough, there was a curl of brown fur on his bed, nose tucked under a fluffy tail.

"Dammit, he shifted again." Derek cursed, waving his hands.

Stiles opened his eyes and looked curiously at Derek, not understanding the fuss the Alpha was making.

"Good, you're awake."

Stiles turned his head towards the unfamiliar voice, where he found a face, looking rather concerned as it reached a hand out towards his leg.

"Definitely broken…"

Stiles was utterly confused, so Deaton reached a hand out to pet lightly at the long fur on his head.

"I'm doctor Deaton, a friend of the Hale family."

Stiles's eyes darted to Derek, confused.

"My assistant, Scott, is a werewolf. So I'm no stranger to wolf injuries."

Stiles listened to the man's heartbeat. Steady. So he leaned in to the touch, then tried to stand up, temporarily forgetting his broken leg, and howled in agony.

"I can't put a cast on until the swelling goes down. You have to bring him by my office tomorrow." Doctor Deaton looked over to Derek, "Check on him a few times through the night, we don't want him rolling onto his leg and making it worse."

"Doesn't he need to shift?"

"No, if he is more comfortable as a wolf, let him stay in this form, for the time being."

Stiles was ignoring the entire conversation in favor of licking at his broken leg.

"I'm going to give you something for the pain."

Without hesitation, Deaton jabbed a needle into Stiles's neck, depressing the syringe.

The drug quickly made its way through his system, and within a few seconds, he lied limp on the bed.

• • •

Deaton cleared his throat and closed his bag.

"This is serious, Derek. He's clearly not used to living amongst humans. Cast out maybe. And for what reason we do not know. Probably banished, and by harbouring him you bring the risk of putting yourself in danger."

"I didn't ask for this." Derek forced out.

"Just his luck that you happened to be out there. Why were you there?"

"Checking the perimeter." Derek stated firmly.

Deaton made steely eye contact with Derek, clearly letting on he didn't believe the Alpha. But he didn't press it.

"Well, he's your responsibility now."

"Until he heals."

"If your uncle learns about this." Deaton warned in an obvious fear charged voice and looked over at Stiles. "He'll kill him."

To be continued…


End file.
